How do you find the optimum place to live?

moneyistooshorttomention

Indeed there are pros and cons to a lot of places.

Things have to be born in mind, to some extent, on an individual basis too. Personally - a factor I take into account is distance from likely terrorist attacks these days (yes...I know the chances are small - but I'm not prepared to live without the "peace of mind" on this that I took for granted once personally). Also some people are prepared to "barely notice" pollution levels in a place that other people are all too well aware are too high and they daren't take the chance will harm them too (courtesy of their particular genetic inheritance).

On the other hand - a local person was telling me recently that they spelt out the level of access to health care if needed to elderly people that were thinking of moving here. They changed their minds about doing so. I fully understand - having just (finally) concluded spending what amounted to several days worth of work to get a minor health issue sorted out that takes a few hours of my time normally (ie in my home city). Conclusion = you have to be more "determined"/prepared to put in extra "work" to live here (errrm...and a patience level I haven't got personally would help too LOL).

Hence - the differing personal factors to bear in mind for everyone individually.

elverson

The deprivation statistics don't tell the full story.

We used to live in a flat in Manchester city centre. Because of the way the boundaries fell it was in one of the 10% most deprived wards* in the country, but the street was great, we had a good quality of life and the flat itself was brilliant.

*From the "Indices of Multiple Deprivation" list

[Deleted User]

questionss wrote: »

We now live in a beautiful, small yet active village, my son walks to school across fields and yet the train into London is less than 3miles away and takes 17min on a fast train (up to 32min on slower trains).

Yay for Hertfordshire. It's rather expensive if you don't want to live in Stevenage/Hatfield/Hemel but a loverly county. I'm waiting to see if they link the Abbey Flyer (Watford->St Albans) into the line to London, then we'll be 10 minutes walk from a direct train to London.

If your house is double the price of one in St Albans, I'm guessing you're in Radlett? That place is nice is but one of the most expensive villages in England.

We initially moved to Borehamwood when looking to buy our first house, after I did a 'cost/location' analysis.

1. Pick out the areas with houses that are within your price range
2. Figure out which of those areas have transit links to places of work
3. Narrow down to a handful of areas, generally by how 'nice' they were and how they fit 1 and 2
4. Look at schools, crime rates to pick 'areas within areas'
5. Hope that there are houses that you like

On our second home, we'd lost the restriction of needing to travel to Central London, so we picked the village we wanted, then waited until a house we liked came up for sale.

Ended up in Bricket Wood; it's an island of solitude nestled between the M1 and M25. However, I did look at the costs involved in commuting back to London, and it seems prohibitively high.

ibizafan_2

I like living in Warwickshire. Near to all the major motorways so you can strike out in any direction, and the train service in this town can get you to Euston in 50 minutes. We did consider moving to the south coast at one point, but couldn't find the ideal place. Another plus here is the proximity to Birmingham Airport which IMO is one of the best regional airports. Being within 35 minutes of an airport is important to us. My eldest son lives in London, and I often get a cheap train down to meet him after work, go for a meal, and get a later train home. Warwickshire is also a very attractive county and near other beautiful parts of the country such as the Cotswolds. My dream of living by the sea still remains, but might never materialise.

SailorSam

When you say .... Where to live', do you mean whereabouts in the Country or just in your area.
When i first left home, my first house was, where is cheapest. Then my next move was still on price but i wanted a garage or at least a driveway to park on. My next move 35yrs later was, my Mum died and i bought her house. Bigger than i needed but much better than wghere i was, closer to the rest of the family, and nearer to buses, trains, and shops.

getmore4less

I would narrow the focus, since freeing up capital is a primary objective that will rule out lots of places as you will have a budget to work with for the type of property you are looking at

Then for retirement cost of living is another important factor.

For that you can use the Wetherspoons factor just look at the prices for a guest ale and the steak night.

Higher the price the higher the cost of living in the area, other places for going out will be more expensive as well.

I think a major thing you can look at is not having to commute or work so can seek out places that don't have the wages factor driving up prices.

Also consider the will have to stop driving so alternative transport options.

Then as others point out health care,
I can walk to my local hospital but some of the services are in another unit 18miles away across the county and my GP practice has gone t1ts up so getting appointments is a nighmare.


Unless this is imminent say less than 5 years places can change a lot so what is good now could go down hill and some dump could be come the next hot area.

moneyistooshorttomention

LOL at the Wetherspoons Litmus Test for prices in the area:rotfl:.

Sounds as valid a test as any other - and I'll bear it in mind in future:).

On the Wetherspoons Scale - what's the verdict for "The nearest Wetherspoons would take about an hour to get to from here"?

JimmyTheWig

ringo_24601 wrote: »

If your house is double the price of one in St Albans, I'm guessing you're in Radlett? That place is nice is but one of the most expensive villages in England.

They said that "a similar property in the Hertfordshire hotspot of St. Albans would cost half as much again as what I'm paying". (my bold)
I take that to mean their house is £400k. Similar in St Albans would be £600k.

JimmyTheWig

Towser wrote: »

The ones as described on the national statistics website.

Are you saying that the ONS can give you a list of the areas in the top 10% in terms of least depravation?
And are you saying that you would be happy to live in any of these?
But you want to live in the cheapest of these?

Then surely you just need to get that list and (using Zoopla, maybe) find average house prices in each area and pick the lowest.

Towser

Are you saying that the ONS can give you a list of the areas in the top 10% in terms of least depravation?
And are you saying that you would be happy to live in any of these?
But you want to live in the cheapest of these?

Yes I think the answer is Wokingham being the most affordable.